[Election-Methods] RE : Corrected "strategy in Condorcet" section

Juho juho4880 at yahoo.co.uk
Wed Aug 1 14:06:14 PDT 2007


I just commented in another mail that 100% of the people who voted  
did evaluate all the candidates. I think this holds if there are only  
so many candidates that all voters surely have had the chance to  
consider all of them. If there are e.g. 100 candidates, then the  
results may be more random and a new vote among the strongest  
candidates could be in place.

The biggest problem to me in this scenario is of course the fact that  
there are so many people who clearly say that C better than D and so  
few who have the opposite opinion. The 1000 C>D votes don't weigh  
much. These people could say "didn't you hear what we said".

((Note also that majority can be measured in numerous ways. It can be  
majority of the citizens, majority of the people with right to vote,  
majority of the people who voted, majority of the ballots that were  
approved, majority of the ballots that were not empty, majority of  
the votes that mentioned the to be winner, majority of the votes that  
did not rank the to be winner tied at bottom, majority of the votes  
that took position on x vs. Y, majority of the votes that raked both  
X and Y above the bottom (Y could be the worst opponent of X or...).))

Juho


On Aug 1, 2007, at 2:27 , Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote:

> At 04:11 PM 7/31/2007, Juho wrote:
>> I'm still wondering if you felt that D was the rightful
>> winner in the basic example where sincere opinions were 1000 A>B,
>> 1000 C>D, 1 D>B (or 1000 A>B>C=D, 1000 C>D>A=B, 1 D>B>A=B).
>
> I'm not getting into the main discussion here, but wanted to answer  
> the question implied.
>
> There is no rightful winner in the situation described. There is  
> only a rightful winner, properly, when a majority have expressed  
> consent to that choice. We often infer this from votes, but, here,  
> there is no adequate information, so I'd consider this a failed  
> election. Both A and C fell short of a majority, and D>B does not  
> indicate acceptance of D, but only rejection of B in comparison.
>
> I would resolve it by assigning 1000 votes to A, 1000 votes to C, 1  
> vote to D, and putting them in a room and not giving them food or  
> water until they agree. If they could not agree within necessary  
> time limits, I'd hold the election again. I'd be tempted to  
> disqualify A and C, but.... they did have 1000 supporters each.
>
> And the new election would be plurality with the two candidates.
>
> Just joking about the food and water part. Sort of.


	
	
		
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